GST Council To Meet On 12 June As Govt Tax Revenue Falls Due To COVID-19

The GST Council is scheduled to meet on June 12 and likely to discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tax revenues, sources told PTI. This will be the 40th meeting of the council, headed by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and state counterparts, to be heald via video conferencing.

A PTI report said that the council will discuss the impact of the pandemic on revenues of the Centre and states and ways to bridge the revenue gap.

While the official numbers aren't out yet, a CNBC-TV18 report citing its sources said that the GST (goods and service taxes) collections for the month of April recorded till 4 June was approximately Rs 43,000 crore.

"The GST filing period, due to pandemic hardships have been extended by 15 days, so actual collections will be recorded till 5 June," the source told CNBC-TV18.

April was the month of complete lockdown, with only essential services permitted to operate. Consequently, the month will definitely see a dramatic drop in tax revenue. May is also likely to see a fall in the collection.

In comparison, GST collections for business activities in April 2019 (recorded in May 2019) were seen at Rs 1,00,289 crore

Faced with the dismal collection and extended deadline for filing returns, the government has refrained from releasing the monthly GST revenue collection figures for the months of April and May.

The Council will also discuss ways to garner funds to compensate states for the revenue loss due to GST implementation. As per GST laws, states were guaranteed to be paid for any loss of revenue in the first five years of the GST implementation from 1 July 2017.

In the previous council meeting on 14 March 2020, Sitharaman had said that the Centre will look into the legality of GST Council borrowing from market to meet the compensation requirements.

The Council would also discuss waiver of late fees for non-filing of GST returns for the period August 2017 to January 2020, PTI reported.